Planar Headsculpt Critique - Beginning steps
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Hi all,
after a decade of amature 3D as a hobby, I'm now seriously considering getting into stylized Character Art for video games.
after a decade of amature 3D as a hobby, I'm now seriously considering getting into stylized Character Art for video games.
Most of my experience is with objects and environments in Blender and traditional packages for
use in-engine so I'm currently focused on making the jump toward
understanding the fundamentals of good sculpture and anatomy with Zbrush. I thought
it best to spend at least a week or two primarily on building up my
skill before putting it all to the test on my first full character asset
and I thought a planar study of the head is a good place to begin my
journey.
Detail and complexity can come with time, but if I don't have my anatomy, form, flow and other fundamentals down from the start then no ammount of details will save me from a bad first-read.
Detail and complexity can come with time, but if I don't have my anatomy, form, flow and other fundamentals down from the start then no ammount of details will save me from a bad first-read.
I'd love any suggestions or critique, the more I can learn the better!
Replies
Planes of the face are pretty good but proportions are all over the place so checking some generic head proportion will be a good idea -> face compare to the rest is tinny , ears are huge , neck is flaring in a strange way .I suggest you add some shoulder so you have something to connect neck to
The surface smoothness adds a stylised effect while maintaining the recognisable face planes, although the pinch on the cheek and sternomastoid is a little too pinched. In regard to the eyes being sculpted open, It all depends on weather the character will be rigged. Half open eyes are best for animation since it's easier to rig. Here's a really good technique for doing the eye area early on:
Open eyes are nice to see and can help with visualising the rest of the forms. (you see people with their eyes open most of the time) but can be a pain when adding lids for rigging. Assuming you're practicing sculpture at this stage, Try different methods and see the effects. The link's technique is good though.
Practicing realistic anatomy will definitely benefit you as a stylised artist as well. I think you're doing this already though, since you've got the main landmarks there and the proportions seem good at the moment. Doing realistic studies, and then applying what you learned to stylised techniques is always beneficial. (I can throw some cool anatomy resource links your way if you want them.)
Carvuliero's tip about he shoulders is a good one. Adding the shoulders, back and thorax will let you blend the neck muscles into the bones and forms of the upper body. You can just throw in a sphere or a cube early on and get it into shape, like a statue bust.
supr quick plz no judge
Keep goin' yo!
I'm coming at this having spent a few years practicing drawing skills and anatomy in 2D. I am aiming for realistic anatomy at this stage, even if I'm missing by some margin right now.
This is my very first attempt at a headsculpt in Zbrush and collectively your critiques have really helped me see what aspects I need to improve or simply got lost in translation from 2D to 3D.
The intent was to do a largely masculine head first so I could focus on bone and structural landmarks that aren't typically as defined for females.
Looking at it with fresh eyes having now slept and checking against reference materials I definetly see that my placement feels mostly right (Until someone points out I'm totally wrong!) but the eyes, mouth and forehead in particular are all too large causing the other proportions to be thrown off. I tapered the neck strangely to try and illustrate the trapezius' form but my thinking there was clearly backwards in hindsight and I will try not to feel such a need to sharpen the edges of the planes. I left out sculpting the details and planes of the inner eyelids as I didn't want to devote too much time to that on my first try over making sure that the bigger forms were correct first, I will include those in my next attempt.
Any resources, guides or tips that you think would help along would also be greatly appreciated!
I'll get back to Zbrush now and return with my latest!
I spent a little while looking over my previous sculpt and tweaking it with your critiques in mind so I could better understand what the issues were before starting over from scratch and implementing those fixes as best as I could see them and casting a wider net in my search for anatomical references. (For my first sculpt, I was entirely relying on planar-breakdowns of the head for reference.)
Definetly a significant improvement over the first however I feel there is still a ways to go.
If you do Scott Eaton course on facial anatomy, he gets you draw the skull on ecorche over and over again. The idea being that the face is just the skull plus some muscles/fat.
I agree that it's wonky, I think there are a few subtleties that I'm not yet able to see with my own eyes but my mind knows they're there.
I start my sculpture with a sphere, looking at reference of skulls and proportion guides lay down the boney landmarks of the skull then proceed to fill out the planes and then features of the head. This has thusfar proven effective at the broad strokes, I just need to narrow down what it is that I'm not seeing.
I've studied from anatomy books for 2D drawing, Loomis in particular however there are quite evidently gaps in my understanding. I'll take your advice and spend some time really familiarizing myself with the skull before I continue with the full head, thank you for your advice!
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/5f/88/84/5f888490942f70c7c101351cf68452d5.jpg
Just saying as your sort of doing his mistake in your sculpt.
Really good book for 3 anatomy sculpting in zbrush, especially if you already have an understanding of anatomy though it's just as good for beginners. (This one's for you Elikahale!)
Lots of plates on muscular male physique, musculature and bone structure. Good for ready reference while working.
Really good introduction to anatomy. Great for actually learning the way bones and muscles connect to each other as well as for generic reference like Richer's. (Note that this is a dated resource and there is some nonsense at the back of the book on ethnicity and racial types. Ignore this, it's BS
Of course, these resources will be generic and unreal. If you model a figure by them strictly, it will look like a wobbly, buff cadaver. They offer information on strucures forms and some basic rules. It will support your using of real world reference of people or forms for studying the human body but aren't effective in isolation.
Wow thank you for pointing this out to me, this is exactly what I needed to see! When drawing I used Loomis' guides heavily early on and It's clear that I have some things I will need to rigorously unlearn, having them pointed out so spesifically has saved me no end of frustration.
After taking a break for a few hours and thinking over the feedback, I returned to my sculpt from this morning and immediately set to iterating on some of the mistakes I could now see better with time away from it, my Zygomatic was definetly way off before (Probably due in part to learning from incorrect sources early on)
Definetly a big step forward and gradually starting to resemble something less... alien...
As always pointers, suggestions and criticism is highly valued.
I think now I have a rough idea of where I'm weak or going wrong I'll turn to studying the skull over again and start with fresh clay tomorrow.
[EDIT]
Looking over it again a day later, I've noticed some new flaws:
1. for the body type, the head is far, far too big in proportion to the upper chest, it needs to be much smaller relative to the body.
2. part of what creates the feeling of discomfort, something being 'off' is that I've been sculpting entirely symetrically and the brain can definetly see that pattern. Adding a subtle assymetry makes the sculpt much more comfortable to look at
Fixed:
This feels waay more natural!
I'll leave this 2nd attempt behind me now and start my third from scratch today to continue to internalise all I've learned.
Good work an keep going